


Traces of Planets and Garbage Dust

by patiently_yours



Category: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 18:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patiently_yours/pseuds/patiently_yours
Summary: Leia's process in the first few hours aboard the Falcon after Han and Luke rescue her from the Death Star. Apparently sass is her first reaction.





	Traces of Planets and Garbage Dust

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Star Wars fic! There are some spoilers for Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Grey. After reading how (SPOILER) Leia responds to Kier's death, it made me re-analyse her response to Alderaan's destruction. Also please forgive me for any British-isms. I've tried to edit my own voice to fit the universe, but it's my first time in ages writing an American fandom.

Luke’s teardrops were still on her hand.

She stepped through a doorway and wiped her hand on her gown, but it was so dirty from her tumble through the trash compressor that it didn’t do any good. The way she’d stepped in to comfort him, shoving aside her own panic and pain in order to address his grief head-on, reminded her of how she had treated the other members of her pathfinding class several years ago. But that thought edged on dangerous territory, reminding Leia of Kier Domadi and her wordless descent into grief upon his death in her arms, and she shook her head sharply and set her jaw.

She could not afford to give in to grief right now.

It was better to think of Luke’s pain, of his loss of a mentor, and to focus on the sadness that came off of him in waves and seemed to fill the rest of the ship.

Speaking of the ship -

Leia turned her head slowly, taking in the space that she’d stepped into. She’d assumed that it was the forward cargo hold, but for a smuggler’s ship, the cargo hold was conspicuously empty. What was it that he’d been doing, then, when he’d detoured to offer her a lift from the Death Star? Suspicion curled in her stomach. Even now, they were hurtling towards Yavin IV, and if it turned out that this smuggler had hidden motives…well. Even telling him the location of the rebel base, the one she’d given up so much to keep hidden, had made her ill. If he betrayed her now…

Still, an empty space was an empty space, and Leia took a deep breath and let it out slowly. If she could find somewhere to curl up, just for a moment -

“Leia?”

He’d pronounced it like “Lee-uh,” and she spun around.

“Leia,” she corrected automatically.

“Sorry, Leia.”

“Actually, Your Highness,” she corrected again, fighting around the jumble of thoughts in her mind to focus on the man in front of her. 

“I’m not royalty; I’m just a smuggler,” he corrected her with a grin.

Leia frowned at him. “I meant me.”

“You call yourself ‘Your Highness’?” he asked. 

“No, it’s what you should call me,” she told him, exasperation sliding around her exhaustion to take over. “Although, come to that, without a planet…”

“So you saw that,” Han said, leaning against the doorframe and looking at her for a long moment. “It was Alderaan.”

“I know,” snapped Leia. “I’m from Alderaan…or I was, I suppose. Listen, I don’t know how you get off reminding-”

“Easy, Princess,” he said, holding up a hand between them. “I didn’t mean to get you riled up. Although maybe that’s better than you sitting in here alone, feeling sorry for yourself.”

Leia stared at him incredulously, too shocked to even form a retort.

Unexpectedly, his face seemed to melt, and the compassion that Leia found there stole her anger.

“Not that you don’t have a right to it,” he admitted. “Luke says you’re the Princess of Alderaan, which means … I just mean that maybe it’s best if you don’t sit alone right now. And I wanted to let you know that there are some extra supplies in the fresher, if you want to clean up.”

“Are you saying that I look dirty?” Leia demanded, frowning.

“I’m saying that you look disgusting,” Han retorted. “I don’t have much in the way of female clothes, but if you want, you can borrow something of mine.”

Leia made a show of looking him up and down, then smirked. “I think I’ll pass. Besides, it’s better for me not to turn up at Yavin IV looking like a Corellian spacer’s stowaway. They don’t know to expect me as it is. Speaking of which -“

She gestured to the empty space around them. 

“The cargo hold,” Han told her.

“But without cargo,” she replied. “What were you supposed to be doing when you so fortuitously turned up on the Death Star? I hope that I’m not keeping you from something important.”

“You were the something important,” Han told her, and his tone made her blush, although she couldn’t have explained why. “Luke and that crazy old guy hired me to take them to you.”

“That crazy old guy has a name,” said Leia sharply. She couldn’t shake the knowing that if not for her, Obi Wan Kenobi would have been nowhere near the Death Star today. But she’d called for him, and he’d answered. Or at least, Luke had answered and dragged Obi Wan with him. 

“It’s not your fault,” Han said abruptly. 

A lump lodged in Leia’s throat, and she shook her head quickly. 

“You can’t-”

“It’s not. Your fault,” Han repeated, reaching for Leia’s shoulder.

Leia backed away sharply, her eyes wary. Her shoulder still throbbed from what Vader’s men and droids had done to her, and although she hadn’t had a chance to check it out yet, she knew that the damage wouldn’t be pretty. 

Han misinterpreted her response and held up his hands.

“Sorry,” he told her, and he sounded genuine. That upset Leia more than the memory of Vader, and she shook her head, pushing the hair that was falling out of her buns away from her face.

“It’s not you. It’s, um,” she gestured at her shoulder vaguely, then turned her face away from Han. He was too adept at reading her already, and she was beginning to realise how much she’d like to just be held right now. To curl up in somebody’s arms and hide her face in their shoulder and let them keep her safe for long enough for her to fall apart. And Han, damn him, looked solid enough to be able to handle that.

But he was right, and Yavin IV was only a few hours away. She wasn’t quite sure what awaited her there, but she was fairly sure that it wasn’t either of her parents and the good news that this was all a dream. It was probably more along the lines of clearly defined loss, of names and statistics to match the white explosion that haunted her every time she shut her eyes.

“Where did you say the fresher was?” She asked him abruptly, her voice grating in her throat. 

“Out to the left, head towards the galley,” he told her, stepping to the side of the doorframe to let her pass. “And Princess?”

But Leia didn’t let him finish, already undone by the gentleness in his voice.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” she told him. “I know that no payment is worth that. Although you will be repaid.”

“I don’t-“ he began.

“And I still don’t trust you,” she said, gesturing back to the hold. “I’m thankful, but still. A smuggler with a ship this dingy and an empty cargo hold?”

She spun around and headed back to the galley before he could say anything. The tangible world seemed too far away for her to touch, and her feelings spun in a kaleidoscope, but there was one thing that she was sure of.

She would give anything just to be able to brush her teeth.


End file.
